Oriol Riera Off The Mark

Latics beat Blackpool 1-0 at the DW Stadium yesterday, Oriol Riera scoring his first competitive goal for the club since his summer transfer from Spanish side Osasuna, giving a little payback on his £2million fee and cheering the hearts of the supporters as we chalked up our first win of the new campaign.

Riera had a very good game yesterday, for me he was our man of the match, his inter-play with his team mates was excellent throughout the game, he set up a great chance for his strike partner Callum McManaman with a delightfully exquisite ball and his goal was a well taken effort, tucked into the far corner of the goal with a left footed strike from 12 yards out, but after the game Latics boss Uwe Rösler revealed that he almost started the game with Riera on the bench.

Speaking to the Latics official website Rösler said - 'I wasn't sure whether to start Oriol today or not but I decided it was a good opportunity to throw him in'

'I think he needs time to adapt to English football and we know this because historically this club has experience with players from South America and Spain.

'Today he got off the mark and I think it will give him a big boost.'

Great decision from the gaffer, Riera has I have said was excellent and hopefully he will be off and running now, bring on Birmingham!

For those who weren't at the game and haven't seen the goal, it is on the video below, quite good build up play too leading up to Riera's strike.